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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

Posted on 23 August 2015 by John Hartz

SkS Highlights... El Niño Watch... Toon of the Week... Quote of the Week... He Said What?... SkS in the News... SkS Spotlights... Poster of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... SkS Week in Review... and 97 Hours of Consensus

El Niño Watch

IT IS a long way from the western Pacific Ocean to the flooded streets of Buenos Aires where, this month, the city’s Good Samaritans have been distributing food and candles by kayak after some unseasonably heavy rain. But there is a link. Its name is El Niño.

Toon of the Week

Quote of the Week

"We look to science to tell us the facts about how the world functions. We look to religion to find our meaningful response. As we accept the fact that the climate is changing and that we are the main cause, we look to our common religious ethics to inspire us to act on behalf of those who will be most aversely affected: The poor."

He Said What?

No leaks, no spills, no impact on climate change.

The Keystone XL pipeline would have “no impact” on the environment if it were approved and built, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Tuesday. For that reason, the billionaire said he would approve the controversial project “immediately” if elected president.

SkS in the News

In his onEarth blog post, Denial Across the Pond, Brian Palmer of the National Resouces Defense Council states:

This is not accurate. As John Cook’s excellent website Skeptical Science points out, the actual temperature increase over that period has been between 0.6 and 0.7 degrees Celsius. While that discrepancy seems small in absolute terms, it means Ridley has shaved at least 20 percent off of the scientific data. Moreover, his claim that global warming has slowed is based on a very selective sample. There was a slowing of the rate of warming in the 2000s, but these sorts of variations are to be expected in an overall warming trend. Crucially, the cause of that slowing is known—a proliferation of La Niña events. (You can—and should—read more of Cook’s data-driven critique of Ridley’s views here.)

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